


Colourless

by quicksparrows



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:26:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23189929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quicksparrows/pseuds/quicksparrows
Summary: Sylvain's crest is not his own, but he isn't alone in that.[AU based on vwyn19's crest experiments Sylvain]
Comments: 13
Kudos: 171





	Colourless

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the incomparable Waen's [crest experiments Sylvain](https://twitter.com/vwyn19/status/1239757822629306370?s=20)

The first day at Garreg Mach, their eyes meet across the common.

Sylvain has heard a lot about Edelgard. She has a crest. She will be emperor someday. And true to story, she is not particularly tall, but she has long legs, and pale skin. Her prowess with an axe is supposedly unmatched amongst her peers, and her tongue is as sharp as her gaze. She is very beautiful; that is always specified, likely because it would be of interest to him, which it is.

What is also of interest to him is that she has long, silky white hair. Or no, not white. It is actually colourless. She beelines for him like she is on a mission, and up close, her hair has a tinge to it like bone, or ash. It used to be darker.

Her gaze drifts from his toes to the top of his head, and it lingers there, scarcely stopping on his eyes.

"I always heard that the people of Gautier take pride in their flame red hair," she says. Her voice is very serious, but there's something on the tip her tongue that sounds curious. "But you have very unusual colouring."

Sylvain smiles.

"What's the point in taking pride in something you had no control over?" Sylvain asks, and he leans against the back of a chair. She's pretty. He can see that up close, too. Her gaze drifts down to his. Her eyes are light. Uncanny. He wonders what it's like to be her, looking back at him. He's been told he's uncanny, too.

"There isn't any," she replies. "Sylvain, isn't it?"

"And you're Edelgard," he replies, smoothly. "Don't tell me. You came over to ask me for dinner? Don't worry about twisting my arm –– I accept."

Edelgard tries not to smile. He can see in her expression that she is unused to being flirted with, and the novelty of it threatens to upset her cool, disaffected front. He knows how that is, because he's not so different.

"Not quite," she says, finally. "But I have heard you like strategy, and I was wondering if you wanted to play a board game with me sometime."

"Sure," he says. "I love games. Especially with a pretty girl."

He reaches to brush a lock of her hair behind her shoulder. It is silky, and it slips between his fingers like water. This time, she doesn't have to hide a smile for him. That flicker of ease is gone. She is all stone.

"I will see you tomorrow then, at noon."

She will.

♘

Their games are tense. She never really talks to him, not about anything personal, or even casual. She is very focused on her studies, and he gets the impression that the games are just a means for her to test her thinking. She is not quite as quick as him, but she is more careful. More planned. She trounces him because he lets her. (Or so he tells himself.)

"Have you met Lysithea yet?" she asks, one day.

"The little one with the light hair?" he remarks. It's easy for the girls to blend together, and though she comes to mind immediately, he does not want to seem too knowing. Too involved.

Edelgard nods.

"She runs away at the sight of me." Sylvain chuckles. "Why? Did she warn you about me?"

"I know what I'm getting into," Edelgard replies. Sylvain wonders why she has to say it like that, all cryptic. It makes him feel tired. He looks down at the board. They both have moves to make but neither will move the pieces until they can be sure it won't expose their kings. He wants to see what will happen.

_Sylvain is mindful of boundaries. He will not ask questions._

"The three of us could form a little club," Sylvain says.

Her fingers hover over one of her pieces, and then she moves it down the board towards his. He counts spaces, imagining how many moves it'll take her to overtake him, and how he can block her. He knows he should. He's supposed to. But--

"What for?" she asks. "She doesn't like board games."

"Oh, I don't know," Sylvain says. "Just because."

"I wouldn't mind another study group," Edelgard says. "With one of us in each house, it's like a small alliance."

"I'd like that."

He regrets it the moment it leaves his mouth; he only realizes it when he notices that his heart is racing.

When he writes to his father that night, he says nothing of his new friendship with the crown princess of Adrestia, but it lingers on his mind the entire time, inches from the nib of his quill.

♘

"I don't understand," Felix says. "Why? Because you look the same? You don't know anything about that. Maybe it's natural."

"I've never met anyone who looked like me naturally," Sylvain argues, but it doesn't come out as sharp as he'd like it to. It's hard to be sharp with Felix. Felix has a monopoly on that kind of edge.

"I'm just saying," Felix warns, and he rolls onto his side. Sylvain, stretched out beside him in the grass, just smiles wanly. "Be careful. You don't have any way of knowing whose side she is on. If your father--"

"He won't," Sylvain replies, tersely. "They're girls. No one will suspect a thing."

Felix does not look convinced.

Somehow, Sylvain feels more sure than ever.

♘

Lysithea likes sweets to a degree that amuses Sylvain. What kind of interest is that, he wonders? Who makes something so trite their passion? His mind asks other questions, like: _When the poor can't afford sugar for their tea, isn't it a mark of privilege to have frosting to dip your fingers into, and little hard candies to fill your pockets with?_ He thinks about this every time he watches her alternate reading a page with snacking. Her hair is the same colour as the frosting piped atop the pastry she is about to put in her mouth. Her eyes are shocking pink. Sylvain thinks he'd be happier to see that colour in the mirror than yellow.

But Lysithea does not like to be seen.

"Stop staring at me," she orders. "What's there's to look at that long, anyway? You are _very_ rude."

_Sylvain tends to be flippant, but he is respectful of the rules._

"Hey now," he laughs. "I can't help it. Your hair is just so unusual, that's all."

Her hair is colourless, too, but it's less like bone and more like dusk. Sylvain imagines it was pink once. Maybe a blush colour, or even salmon.

"So's yours," Lysithea shoots back, like a child. It's always very _I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I?_ with a touch of _nyeah-nyeah,_ particularly from someone who purports to be a woman grown. Her eyes narrow and settle on his hairline.

"Yeah, we're the same," he teases. "So show a little camaraderie, huh?"

"We are _not_ the same," she retorts. He knows something of that, but not enough to pry; he is tired of still dancing around this subject, but he understands why they do it. Why _he_ does it. The thought of saying it makes him nauseous. Someday he will puke it out, powerless to stop it. Someday soon. He can feel it.

"Alright, but me and Edelgard are the same," Sylvain says, as lightly as he wants to be. Edelgard is trying to ignore them both, her eyes still fixed on their studies. He leans his elbows on the table, one hand going through his own pale hair, tousling it back. "You don't have to be in our little club."

"Hey--"

"Lysithea is one of us," Edelgard replies. There is no room for argument.

"Okay," Sylvain says. "Prove it."

Edelgard tears her gaze from her books. She looks offended, or maybe just defensive. Sylvain can tell she does not want to share, but then again, neither does he. He just wants to stab beast lingering over all of their shoulders and rid himself of the tension.

"Demonstrate more commitment to your studies first," she says, and that's the end of that.

♘

Sylvain's chest feels empty. His heart may have gone missing entirely, and he feels ice cold for it. Numb. There is no sensation in his fingers, but he knows he is holding the Lance of Ruin. It is heavy between his fingers, so heavy that he thinks it should be impossible for him to lift it. 

Miklan is at his feet. No, not Miklan. Miklan's corpse. His massive form is sprawled on his back, laid out in a way that is unnatural, broken. There are no wounds on him, not after being transmogrified into a beast, but he has died of them just the same. His body had been stripped of the ability to hold the power that Sylvain had adopted.

_Sylvain has a better temperament. He understands obedience, and the way we do things here._

"What he said to you," Edelgard remarks, "about you taking everything from him..."

"Don't," Sylvain says, a little cooler than he intended. He doesn't look at her, but he feels her lavender eyes boring into him. They are wide with an unusual sympathy, but the two of them are not alone. He knows she wouldn't say it, not in front of everyone, but he fears she would. Miklan already said enough to make anyone wonder, but...

"We should speak about this later. I may not be your house leader, but since I allowed you to come with us on this mission, it is only right that I debrief you after," she says.

He nods, numbly.

Not an hour later, in the privacy of her tent, she tells him about her crests. He had known, but it overwhelms him just the same to hear it. When it comes time for him to share in turn, fear floods him from his toes to his hairline, and he feels like he will be sick. Edelgard has none of it.

"Everything I have seen today," she says, "is enough for me to surmise the truth. But I would hear it from your mouth."

He is newly twenty, but he feels as though he is very small, and very afraid. He clutches the hem of her cape as he tells her, choking out the story the same way he felt it fifteen years ago. Edelgard puts her hand in his hair. She asks him if he is ready to do something about it.

Sylvain cannot think about the greater world, or the injustices it has committed upon its people -- even him.

In that moment, all he can think about is that Miklan is dead. Dead save for the blood that still pounds in Sylvain's veins.

♘

His father writes him:

_I'm proud of you._

Sylvain reads it but he does not feel pride in himself, even though he should. It is the first time his father has told him that in a very long time. Instead, he is subsumed by the feeling that he cannot have it all. It would be impossible. 

In being given a crest, something else was taken from him, and he will never get that back.

♘

Something happens in the Holy Tomb.

Sylvain hears about it when the alarm is raised and Garreg Mach battens down -- just snippets. There is a flurry of motion, and he is sheltered inside with a handful of other students as the knights outside shout and clash with the Adrestian army. He waits at the door with his sword drawn, prepared to fight should any soldier enter, but they are more interested in fleeing. In extracting someone.

They are extracting Edelgard.

Sylvain watches through the glass as she goes by, her colourless hair trailing behind her. She does not look back, and she does not know how close he is, or that he is watching. His stomach turns; there is no time to deliberate, and he must make a choice, even without knowing what he is choosing.

_Sylvain will make the right choices._

His hand lands on the door's bolt and pulls it back. Felix looks at him sharply, his eyes narrowed with concern.

"She's leaving," he remarks, but it's too late. He's much too slow. Edelgard is already gone. The knights stream after her.

Why didn't she wait for him?

He _said_ he was ready.

He thought she understood him--

♘

Garreg Mach will fall. Sylvain feels it in his bones as he watches the banners gather on the horizon, a long wall of red and black and gold. He feels the hiss of breath in his ear, too, Dimitri ordering that if he is the one to find her on the battlefield, he is to wind his fingers into her pretty hair and drag her to Dimitri for her execution. He is to do this by any means necessary.

On the battlefield, he does see her. She is unhelmeted. So is he. The cool spring air promises rain, and a stiff breeze has her long, colourless hair floating behind her. Sylvain reaches up to tousle his bangs from his eyes with his free hands, and then he adjusts his grip on the Lance. 

She sees him too. Her eyes flick to his, and then to his hair. Her own grip tightens. They both serve something.

_Sylvain will serve you well._


End file.
